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If you've stuck by 5&A Dime through the years, you already know we're huge nerds. More specifically those Star Wars nerds. We just released those San Diego Rancore long sleeves, and hosted a very successful Star Wars movie night. With all this hype and anticipation, the biggest question was- "Did the movie deliver?"

Personally, I thought the movie was amazing! Lucas set the bar very low with episodes 1-3, so I just hoped that it was better than all three of those movies combined. Which for me it was. The Force Awakes made me excited for Star Wars all over again. I think Abrams did an outstanding job. Not every character got a huge amount of screen time, and not every little thing was explained in full detail. But that's what the rest of the movies are for. I don't need midiclorians fully explained to me, and we didn't need to go into why C-3PO's arm is red, or how Kylo Ren turned to the Dark Side. Well maybe that last one, but It's all part of the mystery. In A New Hope Obi Wan talks about the Clone Wars, and leaves it up to the viewer to fill in what that was. Actually it leaves George Lucas to fill that in for us, but I'm sure that wasn't his original intent.

But back to The Force Awakens. The new characters were great. I'm glad the old cast didn't dominate the whole movie, because this was supposed to be more of a passing of the torch of sorts. The realness of everything is what really pulled me back in. Real stormtroopers, real ships, real sets! The cast had actual things to interact with. Also everything doesn't look like a video game trailer. The cast were running from a real threat, and not just blank blue and green screens. Every time I saw the clone troopers in The Clone Wars, I just kept thinking of how much I would prefer to see a real actor in a costume instead of a hundred CG troopers fighting against 100 CG battle droids. Everything in The Force Awakens just made me want to see the props, and be in that world. I was also glad that the humor was a lot less goofy in this movie. No Jar Jar getting his tongue caught on things, or creatures falling off of things in between shots for a laugh. The humor was more thought out in the writing, opposed to physical gags.

Even though I loved a lot of this movie, there were still parts that I think they could have done better. If you've seen this movie, it's hard not to think "AGAIN?!" and yes there are a lot of familiar parts to A New Hope. And even though there are a lot of similarities, I think this movie brings Star Wars into this new generation of viewers in a lot better light than episodes 1-3 ever did. This next part might just be me, but the acting between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher seemed a little inorganic to me. The banter and chemistry worked a lot better for me in the original trilogy. This time around it almost seemed like, I say my line, now you say your line. I want to go more into some plot, but I don't want to ruin that for you guys.

Happy Holidays 5&A Dimers!!! We are releasing our 5&A Dime Holiday collection just in time for Christmas and those cold winter nights. This collection was inspired by the golden age of boxing AKA the Mike Tyson Era and includes a sweatshirt, sweat pants, t shirt, duffle bag, and a beanie. Perfect for working out or just a lazy day around the house.We're pretty proud of this collection and hope you guys will enjoy it as much as we do. This product is currently available online and in-store. Please click HERE or any of the images below to purchase

Special thanks to Undisputed for allowing us to use their gym for the the shoot. We greatly appreciate it.

Photos: Rose & Peach

Also back in the store is our popular 1904 pullover crew, but this time in the most requested color, black. We ramped up the holiday season with a new pullover hoodie as well. Make sure to get on them quick because these 1904 logos move fast.

Friendsgiving this year turned into a dinner at Din Tai Fung, and a trip to Disneyland. But it doesn't really seem like a festive holiday until you decorate and slave away in the kitchen. November and December are full of holidays, but it's never to late to start your own traditions and make up your own holidays with friends. At some point Friendsgiving was renamed to Jonsgiving.

When life gives you lemon trees, you make lemonade from said lemon tree.

Since every old dude with a huge beard knows how to BBQ and smoke meat, I thought I was getting pretty old and didn't have this knowledge. So I decided to do some Youtube research, because it would be pretty embarrassing to be old and have weak meat. 12 hours of brining and 8 hours of smoking later, my first attempt turned out pretty well. Which was a relief, because everyone's dinner was depending on this not turning out to be inedible.

Nick has never built a gingerbread house before! It wasn't as modern as we would like it, but you can't go wrong with classic gingerbread architecture.

We're pretty proud of this group effort. You'll never see a Cheeto chimney with popcorn smoke.

Ruxton is waiting for snacks to drop.

It's not Jonsgiving without the giving. We all opened some presents, and the electric Nerf gun was probably the worst thing to leave in the hands of Jay. It turns out this thing took 6 C batteries. So Jordan ran out and grabbed some batteries so Jay could shoot all of our dicks off.

As far as I can remember, Nerf guns were pretty weak and inaccurate. So the Nerf Rival Zeus was pretty sweet. Kris tells me that his internet research clocks the speed of these Nerf balls at 70 mph. Check out the video above for some testing. Our girlfriends really wanted to make sure that we don't have kids anytime soon.

So I hope this post inspires some of you guys to bake something, decorate, or just make up your own holidays with your friends. Don't just grab dinner at Boston Market, that's cheating. You'll feel a lot more accomplished if you get your hands dirty. I could go on, but I have to get ready for Nicksmas followed by Krismas!

First off, we want to say "thank you" to everyone that came out last night, it was a blast! We had such a great time and thought it was a success. This is the first movie night we've done in over three or more years and now we're asking ourselves "why did we ever stop" doing them? We think this is something we could do every other month so we'll do you best to keep you all posted.

We want to thank Sweet Bricks, Super7 SD, Blends SD and The Dover for coming together to help us put on this event. Special thank Jon and Hayley for helping provide the sound, lighting and photography. We also want to thank our friend Lester for dressing up in his Shadow Trooper armor.